Media coverage of Asian American Olympians functioned as 'loyalty test'

(Press-News.org) When Asian American Olympians Chloe Kim and Eileen Gu competed in their first Winter Games, they were treated differently by the U.S. media, a new University of Michigan study suggests.

 

Snowboarder Chloe Kim was celebrated as a "typical American teenager" by the media for competing for the United States in her first Olympics in 2018, while four years later, freestyle skier Eileen Gu was cast as an "ungrateful traitor" after opting to represent China instead of the U.S.

 

Study corresponding author Doo Jae Park, a lecturer in sport management at the U-M School of Kinesiology and faculty affiliate of Asian/Pacific Islander American studies, and his co-authors are themselves part of the Asian diaspora. In undertaking the study, which appears in Communication and Sport, they sought to understand how a sense of belonging is created and contested for Asian Americans in the U.S. 

 

Born and raised in California, Kim and Gu pursued different sporting paths: Kim is a two-time Olympic gold medalist snowboarder who rose to international fame after winning at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. The daughter of Korean immigrants, she declined an invitation to join South Korea's national team and instead represented the U.S. 

 

Conversely Gu, a freestyle skier and model who became one of the most prominent faces of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, is the daughter of a Chinese immigrant mother and white American father. She chose to represent China, and won two gold medals and a silver at those Winter Games. 

 

To understand how ideologies and power dynamics were embedded in the coverage of those events, Park and colleagues analyzed more than 200 newspaper articles published in English for the time period around each of the previous two Olympics. They narrowed down over 600 news sources to 116 reports on Kim and 106 reports on Gu to analyze how their identities were defined by the mainstream press. 

 

The researchers found that while the media framed Kim as the embodiment of the American dream for representing the U.S., it cast Gu as a nationalistic threat for competing for China, Park said. But despite these divergent narratives, they concluded that both athletes were subjected to "conditional belonging" by the media, whereby their status as Americans was contingent upon their perceived loyalty to the U.S.

 

The 'insider vs. outsider' binary

 

By choosing the U.S. over South Korea, Kim, the "insider," was framed as the "All-American teenager" and the embodiment of the American dream, Park said. By choosing China, Gu, the "outsider," was cast as a nationalistic threat and accused of choosing profit over patriotism. Media outlets often fed on each other, duplicating loaded phrases like "pick a side" until a specific narrative was solidified. 

 

Model minority myth

 

Despite their differences, both women were subjected to the "model minority" myth, according to Park. News coverage frequently pivoted from their athletic prowess to their academic pedigrees—notably Kim's Princeton connection and Gu's admission to Stanford—and high SAT scores. Furthermore, media narratives underscored their parents' immigrant backgrounds and the significant parental support both athletes received.

 

Fragile acceptance and conditional belonging

 

The study highlights that even for an insider like Kim, belonging is fragile. Despite her gold medals, Kim faced significant racism and bullying during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

"Despite the fact that Chloe Kim is an American citizen, she had to worry about hate crimes because of her appearance and her Asian identity," Park said. "It is a sad realization that the history of Asian racialization is repeating over and over."

 

Societal impact

 

The researchers argue that sports media does not just reflect society—it actively defines who is "allowed" to be American. By focusing on a traditional Black-white racial binary, sport studies often ignores or "others" the unique experiences of the Asian diaspora.

 

The study concludes that until the "perpetual foreigner" trope is dismantled, the status of Asian American athletes will remain conditional, regardless of their success on the world stage.

 

"We need to diversify and redesign the racial paradigm ... so that we can include Asians, Asian Americans and other minoritized populations," Park said. "At the end of the day, we can make sports studies diverse, inclusive and accessible to all people."

 

Study co-authors include NaRi Shin and Wenyuan Yu of the U-M School of Kinesiology 

 

Study: Ungrateful Immigrant vs. American Dream: Critical Discourse Analysis of U.S. Popular Press on the Nationality Choices of Eileen Gu and Chloe Kim (DOI: 10.1177/21674795251411206)

END